Richard - Explosions!

Explosions

As recalled by Richard A. Gudmundsen

Written in 1998

Three Explosive True Stories!

Pictured is Richard with his baby brother, Stanley.

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THE ROOT BEER EXPLOSION!

About 1935

When I was about 12 years old, my family consisting of Dad and Mom, Stanley, and myself lived on the ground floor of a duplex on 45th street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Upstairs, lived the Shusters consisting of Harry, Ada, and their daughter Harada. (Apparently they could not agree on a name so they compromised on a combination made up of parts of their own first names.) Downstairs was the basement which was divided into two parts, one for each tenant. At the back of the basement was the laundry, which included the old style wringer-washing machine and a big double laundry sink, and my own "laboratory" consisting of an electrical section and a wood lathe. Next came the furnace room with a hand-fired coal furnace and a large coal bin. At the front of the basement, (with respect to the street), was a large fruit cellar with a row of shelves for the canned goods my Mother made up each summer. High windows along all of the walls, except along my "lab" section, were great for crawling through if they were open in the summer. In the winter they were generally completely covered with snow.

One day Mom began canning root beer using Hires Root Beer Extract, sugar, and yeast. She generally put it into thick-walled root-beer bottles with a clamp-on stopper with a rubber ring seal. Stan and I were excited for we really loved Mom's root beer, especially after it had a good charge of CO2 from the yeast and its effect on the sucrose. (The reaction products are carbon dioxide and a bit of ethyl alcohol. I don't think Mom realized that at the time.) Anyway, she made up a really big batch this time, for we were planning to have some of the branch members over for a root-beer and bunko party.

All went well until she realized that she had much more root beer than she had bottles. So she decided to use quart Mason Jars instead. (This action precipitated the event which occurred some six weeks later as the root beer came "on line".)

It happened about 3:00 in the morning. There was a loud "bang!" downstairs, followed by a series of more bangs like rifle shots! I awoke to hear Dad and Mom rush to our room, (Stan and I slept in one bedroom) to see if we were all right. I think it was Dad who decided that the noise must have come from the cellar. So we all traipsed down the stairs and Dad opened the door to our side of the basement with his key. I think I was the first who pushed the door in and scampered into the room.

It smelled great! Like fresh root beer in fact. As we proceeded through the furnace room, I could see a brownish liquid coming from under the fruit cellar door. As I pulled the door open with a bang, (it always stuck), I could see shards of glass everywhere. All of the Mason jars were now nothing but bits of glass. However, the good bottles were still intact, thank heaven!

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The Locker Explosion

About 1936

As a Junior at Washington High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I took chemistry as my science subject. It was great! I loved it, especially the laboratory work. One of my casual friends in the class was somewhat of a dare-devil. He was always playing practical jokes on the other students. His locker was right next to mine and had a combination lock which was very exasperating when he was adjusting the dial. If he missed a number by even a hair, it would not open.

One day he told me that he had made a batch of nitrogen tri-iodide. This is done by simply soaking iodine crystals in concentrated ammonia. While wet, the compound is stable, but when dry it is a super-sensitive explosive! His plan was to play a trick on Mr. Erickson, the Geometry teacher.

Mr. Erickson was a very good teacher, and I learned a great deal from him which was key to a better understanding of many of the higher mathematics classes I took later on at the University. He was a very large man with blond hair and steel-blue eyes, who might have been a Viking Warrior had he lived in the ninth century. He also knew his subject better than anyone I have ever known.

However, Mr. Erickson had an interesting habit. He had a very long pointer with a rubber pointing tip and a big rubber ball-shaped bottom. He would point to something on the blackboard, and then let the pointer slide through his hands and bounce several times on the floor on the rubber bottom. He sort of punctuated his remarks with it, and I think he did it so often that he may not have even been aware of what he was doing.

My next-locker friend's plan was simple. He would get to class well before class time, and smear some of the wet NI3 on the base of the pointer and see what happened. I was at least a passive conspirator for I went along with it (along with a few other boys in the class.)

Finally the hour arrived. I made sure that I got a seat near the front of the room. Mr. Erickson arrived a few minutes later and began his introductory statements of the subject of the day. He was very organized, and made sure that every student was awake. (He would throw a small piece of chalk at students who were day dreaming or not paying attention.) After what seemed an eternity, he grasped the pointer. However, he did not use it immediately, but waved it around to enhance some point he was making. But finally he pointed with it with enthusiasm and let it bounce on the floor.

There was a sharp SNAP!!! as the small amount of nitrogen tri-iodide exploded, and he jumped back and let the pointer fall to the floor. There was a flood of laughter from the class. The room quickly smelled of iodine. As Mr. Erickson picked up the pointer and examined it, a big grin came on his face as he himself tried to suppress a laugh. Then looking very sternly at the class he demanded to know who the culprit was. No one responded. Then as if nothing had happened, he went on with the lesson.

But this is not the end to the story. After the bell rang, it was lunch period. I hurried to my locker to secure my lunch sack which Mom had made for me that morning. My next-locker friend, whose name I cannot recall, was there and was having typical troubles opening his locker. He had his face close to the locker and was very slowly turning the dial. After getting my lunch, I slammed my locker shut with a bang! At this shock, there was a loud FUUSSSH!!! from the next locker which suddenly blew open. My locker-friend looked up in surprise and I could see a series of purple diagonal stripes across his face! He was also rubbing a sore nose! A few curious onlookers gathered around but we managed to shoo them away whilst we surveyed for any damage to the locker. There was none. (I think that it was easier to open that locker ever after this happened.)

My locker-friend had taken the remaining nitrogen tri-iodide he had made up for the prank, put it between two layers of filter paper, and stored it on the top shelf of his locker. It must have partially dried out before he came back and become super sensitive. When NI3 decomposes, it forms hot nitrogen gas and iodine vapor. The hot iodine vapor dyed everything in the locker purple, and had puffed out through the aeration slots into my friend face. He was just lucky that it was not all dry! However, Mr. Erickson soon became aware of the identity of the prankster and called him in for a conference. To this day I do not know what happened, but my locker friend was a model student from that day hence.

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THE WEATHER BALLOON EXPLOSION

In the spring of 1942 as a freshman in college, I, of course, took freshman chemistry. I loved the subject and looked forward to each new area of study, particularly the laboratory work. My Tuesday section was the second freshman chemistry class of each week, and so I learned in general what to expect in each coming lecture from several friends who were in the first section on Monday morning.

I learned that the Monday section had the annual hydrogen-oxygen balloon explosion demonstration in their lecture period, which is heralded as the peak demonstration of the year. As a result, I made sure that I was in the front row for our class period on Tuesday.

The chemistry lecture hall at the university was a typical high-ceiling lecture room with the rows of student chairs in a staircase arrangement with about a foot high step between rows. With some twenty rows in the room, the top row was about 20 feet up and just in front of the high windows which went all across the back of the room. A large double-height blackboard which could be written on and raised to expose a second blackboard was mounted on the front wall in convenient reach of the lecturer. In front of it was a long chemistry bench complete with gas and air lines and a sink. Next to one side of the blackboard, also against the wall, was a large chemistry fume-hood with a second sink.

As the bell rang, we noted with some disappointment that a chemistry graduate-student, instead of Professor Stratton, was to give today's lecture and demonstration. It seems that the good professor had been called to some kind of government war-board meeting. The graduate student was well trained in chemistry and was doing a respectable job in presenting the material until he came to the exciting part we were all waiting for: the hydrogen-oxygen balloon explosion. As he brought in the balloon, I had some apprehension; for instead of the normal child's balloon we expected, he had a weather balloon which is some four times as large in diameter. ( 64 times the volume). He proceeded to place it inside the fume hood, and then set it off with a lighted paper "tapir."

The resulting explosion knocked the glasses right off my face and made my ears ring. It also blew all of the windows out of the back of the room! The whole class was stunned and was at least momentarily deafened. Suddenly, the door to the hall was thrown open and a disheveled man in a dirty-white chemistry frock burst into the room with a face which looked like he was made up, (rather badly), for a minstrel show. He was hopping mad! It turned out that he had been working in his laboratory using the hood directly behind our wall. The explosion had blasted all the collected dirt and grime from years of experiments in the hoods, right into his experiment and his face.

You know, I never saw that graduate student again. I wonder why?